If Disney gives pride of place in its catalog to its in-house productions, between the Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm productions, the firm also owns the National Geographic chain, which has yet to be fleshed out. Here are 5 documentaries to discover.
National Geographic
If the new Disney + platform logically highlights in-house productions, the Marvel stable catalog as well as that of Lucasfilm, it is worth remembering that the firm owns the National Geographic chain and that this title, its catalog is also part of the offer. A catalog necessarily incomplete for the moment, with a limited offer which only asks to develop in the coming months. This does not prevent us from waiting to discover five documentaries from our selection quite fascinating.
Titanic, 20 years later (2017)
In the history of maritime tragedies, the Titanic is obviously not, far from it, the only ship to have sunk. Other examples exist, with sometimes better human results. Yet it remains in people's minds as one of the biggest disasters. Why this interest then? Because in the consciousness of individuals, this very luxury liner was an authentic microcosm of the society of the time; that of the Belle Epoque. With its working class, its bourgeoisie and its ruling classes, including the wealthy families of industrialists, who occupied the premier cabins, of incredible luxury. A cruise with a fatal outcome, which was largely assimilated to a fatal omen of the future of Europe and the world, two years before being devastated by the First World War and its millions of deaths.
Long before the wreck was discovered in September 1985, the history of the Titanic was the subject of numerous films, television films and documentaries, including elsewhere on the chain. National Geographic, who had dedicated a subject to him in 1987. Titanic, 20 after returns to the creation of the film which entered the History of the 7th art and was signed by James Cameron. The filmmaker is also at the heart of it. If he had already returned to his experience with The Ghosts of the Titanic in 2003, notably offering striking and moving underwater videos of the wreck, Titanic, 20 after, broadcast in 2017, aims at a significantly different point. "When I was writing the screenplay for the film and directing it, I wanted all the details to be as accurate as possible (...) I had to do it right out of respect for the many victims and their legacies. But is "Did I do it right? Now with National Geographic and the latest studies, science and technology, I'm going to reassess it" explains Cameron. An exciting documentary, which also includes the testimony of the granddaughter of John Jacob and Madeleine Astor, the richest couple who embarked on the liner. Madeleine could be saved, but not her husband ...
Before the flood (2016)
Martin Scorsese's favorite actor is a long-time environmental activist. he notably produced several documentaries including Virunga and La 11e Heure, the last turn. He was even appointed in 2016 Messenger of Peace on climate issues at the United Nations, and was of course present in France when the country was the organizer of Cop 21.
Produced and worn by Leonardo DiCaprio, filmed all over the world, Before the Flood describes the dramatic consequences linked to climate change on our planet. And, as the actor confides, the problem is getting worse, especially because it is difficult to raise the subject in the highest spheres, because of political pressures ... A documentary certainly dark and even depressing , even if it emphasizes at the same time the fact that if countries really unite, it is possible to mitigate the effects of global warming. But the clock is ticking ...
The Secrets of the Tomb of Christ (2017)
It is an understatement to say that the Gospels, and more precisely the life of Jesus, has for decades been a source of inspiration for cinema and the world of documentaries. In the cinema, Christ even appeared from the very beginning of the cinematograph, in The Life and the Passion of Jesus Christ; a French silent film produced and produced between 1902 and 1903. While it even gave birth to a genre in its own right, the Biblical Peplum, the mysteries surrounding the Christ figure and his resurrection were still explored in a film released in 2016 and carried by Joseph Fiennes, aptly titled The Resurrection of Christ.
Far from the speculations that the documentary delivered The Tomb of Christ, produced by the chain Discovery channel and broadcast in 2007, in which directors Simcha Jacobovici and James Cameron presented (without affirming it, the nuance is important) the hypothesis that the tomb of Talpiot, discovered in the East district of Jerusalem in 1980, could shelter the bones of several members of the family of Jesus, including those of Jesus himself even, this documentary signed for the National Geographic chain follows a completely different logic. Here, members of the religious community, architects, archaeologists and scientists collaborate in unison in a rare endeavor to restore the structure that protects what they believe to be the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem. Restoration work that also reveals mysteries hidden for centuries and theories about the origins of the tomb and the burial of Jesus.
Treasures under the sea (2018)
Who has never fantasized about this incredible cargo of gold and precious stones stolen by this 17th century pirate ship sunk after a Dantesque confrontation? What could these German U-Boot submarines sunk during the Second World War transport? Did the legendary civilization of Atlantis, evoked by Plato, Aristotle and Homer, really exist, it which would have been engulfed following a tidal wave caused by a volcanic eruption? What about the famous lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt, known as the seventh wonder of the world and which served as a guide to sailors for seventeen centuries, which would have been destroyed following an earthquake, and whose underwater remains were not studied until the 1960s?
Thanks to the latest scientific data obtained from underwater scanners and avant-garde reconstructions, the series crosses the Chinese seas, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, the Nile, the Pacific coast, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic Sea in search of answers, in order to shed new light on ancient and contemporary maritime puzzles. An exciting documentary series adorned with real educational virtues.
Mission to the Sun (2018)
"Is Space still the new frontier?" to slightly (almost) paraphrase the famous introductory quote opening the episodes of the cult series Star Trek. If fiction has more than largely taken hold of the subject in recent years, with solid works such as Sunshine by Danny Boyle or, more recently, Interstellar by Christopher Nolan, it is clear that the conquest of cosmic space has has accelerated in recent years. One of the most wonderful and fascinating examples is the sending of the probe Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005, which allowed NASA to broadcast ultra spectacular images of the mythical red planet.
National Geographic has a long tradition of fascinating documentaries devoted to Space and its exploration. If the selection on the French version of Disney + remains to be fleshed out, we can always console ourselves while waiting by looking Mission to the Sun. A documentary devoted to the Parker space probe, the launch of which took place on August 12, 2018. At 145 million kilometers from Earth, its objective is to study the solar corona, the outer part of the atmosphere of the Sun which extends up to several million kilometers from the star. The heating of the solar corona and the acceleration of the solar wind - which can turn into a storm - which emanates from it are two phenomena discovered in the middle of the XXth century, which result from processes today little understood. The Parker probe is thus launched in parts of the solar atmosphere never explored, to allow establishing a true solar meteorology and thus predict the occurrences of solar flares, the consequences of which can be devastating. On July 23, 2014, NASA announced in a press release that the Earth had escaped, on July 23, 2012, from a gigantic solar storm. A storm never seen since 1859 and which, if it had touched Earth, could have "send contemporary civilization back to the 18th century", the fact that its impact would have caused damage on an unprecedented scale, the cost of which would exceed 2 trillion dollars on the world economy.
